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Let's discuss.

The idea here is that once an artist creates art, it is no longer a part of him or her. That the artist is but a vessel for the art. Therefore, the artist and the art are completely independent entities. Once an artist creates art, he or she no longer owns that art. Art is for everyone who can grasp the concept of art, meaning, most, if not all, human-beings.

If I paint a picture or take a photograph it is no longer mine. It is for anyone who lays eyes upon it.

If I record a song, and it is rendered into a format to be listened to by anyone, the song is no longer mine. It is out there for anyone to make use of it how they want.

If I make a film, it is now for anyone to view.

Of course, this raises the question of piracy. People place a copyright on art so as to make a profit from it. Is this in of itself immoral? Turning a profit from art and taking legal action against people who obtain it without the artist's permission.

Now, it is one thing to make art and then display it in a museum for profit, tour as a musician performing it live, or having a film released in the cinema for profit; people can choose to pay for the experience. But if I download an MP3, does anyone actually have a right to incriminate me for it?

Another aspect is when the artist themselves becomes immoral, or does an immoral act.

For example, the accusations against Woody Allen. Whether he did sexually abuse a young woman or not, does it give you a right to then judge his art as many people now have? The same goes for Bill Crosby in lieu of his recent accusations of date-raping women by drugging them. Does it tarnish his art?

Thoughts?

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)

For example. U2. God. Man, Bono. You are just awful. And the lot of you, give it a rest.

But man, the Unforgettable Fire.

And literally the rest sucks.

So shut up.

But it did happen.

Right?

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)

I think that the notion of intellectual "property" is somewhat misguided.

Regardless of what the law says, you're not actually paying in real-life economic terms for right to use said property. You're actually paying for the service of someone using their energy and creativity to produce that thing in the first place (and possibly also disseminating it to you). The thing itself, after it is disseminated, is no longer something that is attached to the source, except in an attributional/associative way.

(And the point of anti-piracy measures should be to make people pay for this service, not to bludgeon people over the head to preserve the purity of one's works to enforce management of one's publicity.)

This rings especially true since information -- and all "intellectual property" is a form of information one way or another -- is something that is not a conserved substance and thus can be duplicated and transmitted far and wide without being lost in the first place. It's not an object that can be only associated with one location/user/owner at a time. And in the case of entertainment media, creators want more people to appreciate what they've created, they want more people to have their lives enhanced by the product of their hard work. You can't patrol the meaning everyone finds in your work -- when you release it, it takes its own course.

Like you said, once an artist creates a work, the work becomes its own thing. The artist can have 'eir intentions as to what it means or how it should be used, but the real world doesn't necessarily respect these intentions. People often have alternative interpretations of a story, or unexpected reactions to a sculpture or painting, or novel gameplay ideas for a game. The artist could claim that these alternative takes on 'eir work are a disrespect to 'eir vision of the work, and some fans may latch onto that to attempt to discredit other fans whose opinions they disagree with, but there really is no specially sacred reason why the artist's own intended interpretation should be the only one.

And in fact, one of the best things about many forms of creative work is that alternate interpretations can in fact coexist simultaneously.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 13th September 2015 09:38

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I meant to reply to this sooner but you put it so well, that I really didn't know how to. Great post!

So instead of making a new topic on whether art is subjective or not, I think it falls perfectly in line with the spirit of this thread.

And it was a recent discussion (more like argument) with some co-workers that influenced my bringing this up.

So, I ask:

Is 'art' subjective?

My argument was that no, it is not subjective and all 3 of the people I had this discussion with VEHEMENTLY disagreed.

They argued that it is and always has been up to the person interpreting. That anyone has a say in what art is, that anything can be art.

But it is much like beauty and or society's obsession with it. We are all told, at least here in 'Murrica, that we are beautiful, or talented, or can do anything we want. But how absurd to think these things to be so! Not everyone is beautiful, and beauty is NOT subjective, either. There are ugly things in this world, in this universe. Furthermore, if everything is beautiful, and beauty is subjective, than NOTHING is beautiful.

I think this applies to art. And often, the people who have the opinion "Art is subjective" are often not very artistically inclined, which is not to say they have no skills or talent, just that not everyone is an artist, much like not everyone is a mathematician, or a mechanic, etc...

I have had this argument most with many so called "photographers". And I think this provides the greatest support for my argument. Anyone, literally ANYONE (physical handicap or disabilities not-withstanding) can pick up a camera and take a picture. And a picture in and of itself is not art, it is a photograph, a moment in time captured and given a physical representation. But some photographers are artists and some photographs are art. But if anyone who picks up a camera is an artist, then we are all artists and the art itself, ceases to be.

The camera itself is an odd, time-capturing device that to me, has a higher concept and a higher place amoung other Aesthetic devices. But that is a different discussion that I cannot quite put into words.

This post has been edited by Dynamic Threads on 16th November 2015 03:26

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)

Art is subjective because it's basically what people find some sort of emotional meaning in.

Alternatively, the problem with asking whether art is subjective is that there are multiple definitions to the word "art". This also applies to things like "beauty". One can assume that beauty refers to certain things such as symmetry of the face, and on that basis judge someone who has a facial disfiguration to be "ugly", but to make that judgement you first have to have defined beauty in specific terms already. And other people may use that term in a different way, so they don't necessarily agree with your definition.

Just because it's easy to take a photograph doesn't mean that it's not art.

For what it's worth, I'm a musician myself, and if you were to ask me whether I consider myself artistic, I would say that I guess I do.

I don't understand all forms of art equally. For example, I don't understand dance. Dance rarely speaks to me emotionally/philosophically/whatever. However, I suspect that not everyone understands all forms of art anyway. I mean, do you find special meaning in IV-V chord progressions? I certainly do.

All of these forms of "art" are basically frameworks which we've built, around which we find some sort of emotional meaning. Learning a new such framework is a little like learning a new language. Some of it comes automatically, but some of it has to be learned; anyone can learn it, but those who haven't learned it have a limited ability to "read" it.

Furthermore, art in one medium may have different traditions -- one could use the analogy of languages that share a common alphabet. The way one listens to rap is different from the way one listens to classical, but it is possible for someone who knows classical to find elements of rap that he/she likes, just as it is possible for a person to think that certain words in another language seem to be meaningful or seem to sound really nice. This is not the same as understanding the other language the way its speakers normally understand it. However, it is still finding some sort of personal meaning. And since these are all creative works -- and especially for abstract media such as wordless music -- there is no basis on which one can truly say that any particular meaning-finding is truly wrong. Not what the creator intended? Sure. But not necessarily wrong, either. The meaning is a personal meaning.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 16th November 2015 06:48

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I do love art in many of its forms, but I find it extremely difficult to talk about it to anyone. Before discussing a topic, both parties have to agree on the definition of the topic in question. Say for example if we were to talk about "cars" having one party's definition include all motor vehicles while the other's definition only refers to cars outside of vans/trucks/motorcycles/etc. The conversation would get slightly off topic because we did not decide on a definition before we started. Not the best example, but that was the first thing that came to mind, so l'm sticking with it.

This is where art becomes a problem for me, because every time I try to talk about art, there's never a definition everyone can agree on. Depending on who you talk to, art can have several definitions for each individual. I define art as something one has created for themselves and/or others; intentionally or otherwise. Art is good when at least one person, who is not the artist, thinks it is good. Whether they intend it to mean something or not, people can find a variety of meanings in a single work of art without ever knowing what the artist was feeling at the time of its conception.

As for who owns said art (without getting into a copyright conversation) is hard to know for sure. Yes, you made something. It's yours. But everyone can enjoy what you make and I don't think you have the right to take that away from them. If Van Gogh came to the present day in a Tardis and said that Starry Night was no good and wanted to take it away from everyone's sight forever, we wouldn't let him do it. Or if Shakespeare wanted too re-write Hamlet, no one would allow that either. Even if we did let them do that, it wouldn't be possible. Art spreads too far wide. Once you give your art, you can't take it back. Yes, the super mario brothers movie was terrible and the majority wish it was taken away, but it is art and I for one like the movie and would be upset if I couldn't see it again.

With the possible exception of making less money, pirating art in a digital medium never takes anything from anyone. It is simply copied. One could even argue that we listen to music all the time for free via the radio/pandora/youtube/etc. and thus see no difference in simply keeping said music for free using "pirated" means.

I'm not sure if l got my point across. Sometimes I ramble and end up not making a whole lot of sense, but that is my opinion on the matter.

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